The National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have been using their spy capabilities to target not just enemy governments, but allies, aid groups, and corporations with no obvious links to terrorism or threats to the United States or the United Kingdom.

The new report, published jointly in the New York Times, The Guardian, andDer Spiegel, relies on new documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden clearly showing that the spy agencies targeted “communications of senior European Union officials, foreign leaders including African heads of state and sometimes their family members, directors of United Nations and other relief programs, and officials overseeing oil and finance ministries, according to the documents.” The news outlets did not publish any of the documents, in whole or in part.

Targeted allies also include German diplomatic installations in Africa, a French defense contractor, and Israeli government e-mail. Other targets included Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) in the UK, the French oil and gas giant Total, and an “Estonian Skype security team.”

Leigh Daynes, an executive director of Médecins du Monde, told The Guardian that he was "shocked and surprised by these appalling allegations of secret surveillance on our humanitarian operations,” adding that “[t]here is absolutely no reason for our operations to be secretly monitored. Like other humanitarian actors, we adhere strictly to the fundamental principles of independence, neutrality, and impartiality in our work.”

The EU's competition commissioner and current European Commission vice president, Joaquin Almunia, is also listed as a target. He is the top EU official charged with pursuing an antitrust investigation against Google. Almunia told the Times that he was “strongly upset” about the spying.

As Der Spiegel noted:

The entry "EU COMM JOAQUIN ALMUNIA" appears in an "informal" analysis of the communication paths between Belgium and Africa prepared in January 2009. At the time, the peak of the euro crisis, Almunia was still the EU economics and finance commissioner, and he already had his own entry and personal identification code in the British target database, with the codename "Broadoak."

The most egregious example of the spies' capabilities is demonstrated in the complete transcripts of text messages from Mohamed Ibn Chambas, an official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). He is also the current African Union-United Nations joint special representative for Darfur. According to Der Spiegel, the GCHQ targeted his phone in August 2009 as part of a “test run,” suggesting that this capability has been exercised more than once.

“Am glad yr day was satisfying,” Chambas texted one person. “I spent my whole day travelling... Had to go from Abidjan to Accra to catch a flt to Monrovia... The usual saga of intra afr.”

Every time China gets caught hacking US companies I have said (and others as well) that it's different from what we do. We do espionage and hacking for national security reasons, which is appropriate and necessary; they are doing espionage and hacking for their commercial interests as well, which is not.

I'm no longer confident that's true. It's difficult for me to imagine we are doing so much espionage on foreign companies and regulators with not a peep to US companies. Why else would we be doing it?

The problem here isn't that the NSA targets allies and neutrals, it's that: 1) they got caught, and 2) there's no clear indication of how they choose their targets, and whether they consider the cost to the taxpayer and the costs of the fallout from getting caught when choosing targets. What's the benefit from spying on Medecins sans Frontiers, for instance?

My fear is that any "reform" of the NSA will simply focus on the fixing the first issue, and forgo the creation of a cost-benefit analysis step in determining whether or not to hit a target.

While I understand a certain level of espionage is to be expected and is even acceptable, I have to ask why are my tax payments being used to fund the surveillance activities listed here? Even if you completely ignore the constitutional issues and the issues concerning the invasions of privacy that are occurring, the NSA is wasting a ton of money that could be spent on just about anything else with a better impact on our economy - particularly considering what the fallout is going to be from their amateur handling of this entire debacle.

Some of this hacking actually makes a lot of sense to me, which is sort of scary. Thales Group, the french defense contractor has a long long history of quasi-legal and just flat out illegal activities. Most notably they have been found guilty repeatedly for bribing officials in exchange for contracts, the world bank even blacklisted them for it. Total S.A. is one of the six largest oil companies in the world and had secretly been pushing members of the U.N. to lift sanctions against Iran for years. Recently they publicly acknowledging the want to do business in Iran and are prepared to do so the moment sanctions would be lifted. Total has also had labor problems all over the world but predominantly at their refineries in France. Médecins du Monde is actually a stroke of genius, they are active in areas like Syria and Somalia and frequently report to each other about the conflict, safe zones, parties involved, etc. Hacking their communications is like having boots on the ground without having to put boots on the ground.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

If they were competent and none of this came out, it would be justified. We're hearing about them now, so they're obviously not as competent as they think they are and thus deserve every bit of excoriation they get.

Some of this hacking actually makes a lot of sense to me, which is sort of scary. Thales Group, the french defense contractor has a long long history of quasi-legal and just flat out illegal activities. Most notably they have been found guilty repeatedly for bribing officials in exchange for contracts, the world bank even blacklisted them for it. Total S.A. is one of the six largest oil companies in the world and had secretly been pushing members of the U.N. to lift sanctions against Iran for years. Recently they publicly acknowledging the want to do business in Iran and are prepared to do so the moment sanctions would be lifted. Total has also had labor problems all over the world but predominantly at their refineries in France. Médecins du Monde is actually a stroke of genius, they are active in areas like Syria and Somalia and frequently report to each other about the conflict, safe zones, parties involved, etc. Hacking their communications is like having boots on the ground without having to put boots on the ground.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

No, the NSA was made to spy on our enemies, or adversaries at least, in the Cold War. WHile there is indeed a long history of intelligence gathering, there's a major difference between that and what the NSA has been doing. Traditionally, the unwritten rules of diplomacy recognized the necessity of talking to people and getting what information you can from sources both human and otherwise. This data would then be analysed by professionals and conclusions drawn. Where the line was drawn, however, was that one did not read a gentleman's correspondence. That meant not opening the mail or reading the more casual notes sent hither and yon via courier. Well, of one's allies, at least. All was fair in time of war.

The NSA, of late, has not only been reading the modern equivalent of letters of the common folks which would be bad enough. No, they've also been doing so with the personal correspondence of heads of state, ambassadors, etc, who are to have been absolutely inviolable. It would have been "fair game" if we'd paid an aide for the same information. Oh, sure, they'd "protest" and such for appearances sake but it's part f the game. This basic level of trust is inherent to diplomacy and I am positive the White House is feeling the backlash quite painfully.

"So, Google & Microsoft, let us in and we will let you have this neat stuff from that bothersome EU commissioner. And since it is not a request but a transaction, it does not have an impact on your transparency gambit. Deal? "

I truly hope our government realizes that they need to fix this behavior, urgently.

It's shit like this that is detrimental to our nation more than anything else, imo. Word on the street is not many people are happy with our government and how it behaves on our behalf.

Next thing we know an armed revolution could take place, lord knows we have the guns for it, and a constitution begging for it.

Or even worse, we get caught up in a moment and elect the wrong people to office. Desperate nations do stupid, stupid things.

I know what it means to be an American. I know what this country stands for, and I will die fighting for it if it comes down to that. My life is less than a drop of water in the ocean, it isn't that important. Ideas, however, they are what sustains us, for good or bad. The United States of America is one of the best ideas humanity has ever come up with. Soldiers have fought and died for The Red White and Blue, died for our constitution, died for humanity.

Give me liberty or give me death. I live by those words. You owe it to humanity to subscribe to that idea as well. I don't only speak of Americans either, I mean all of us. Every color, creed, and country, we all owe it to those who have come before us, and most importantly, those who will come after us.

Or even worse, we get caught up in a moment and elect the wrong people to office. Desperate nations do stupid, stupid things.

This is what concerns me the most, of late, in the public arena. While I think we need to get most of these worthless asshats out of Congress, what really bothers me is who's going to replace them? God, this must be what getting old feels like. *sigh*

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

Do you bug your neighbors home, a neighbor you are on friendly terms with?

Given the economic spying going on it seems more and more valid for people to call the US a Fascist state.

There's precious little evidence to back up your accusation. Facist states aren't just any old countries with mass surveillance and a paranoid leadership class. They always have really spiffy uniforms and great military parades as well.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

If they were competent and none of this came out, it would be justified. We're hearing about them now, so they're obviously not as competent as they think they are and thus deserve every bit of excoriation they get.

If they were competent and none of this came out, IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG!!!

I never understood the whole 'take over the world' game. So you take over the world--you're on top; you know everything, nothing escapes you--now what? You're on a tiny little rock with a finite supply of resources. Now you have the pleasure of worrying about losing control of your 'power' for the rest of your life, until it actually is taken from you.

Seems to me like there are better things to do than worry about what someone else is doing. I dream of an era where we aren't separated by our humanity, but drawn closer together because of it. We will never advance as a whole without cooperation, and looking over your allies' shoulders, reading their mail, and listening to their phone calls are going to start fights that could've been avoided if you'd just had the common decency to respect them.

Moderation and self-control are the keys to opening the doors of humanity.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

If they were competent and none of this came out, it would be justified. We're hearing about them now, so they're obviously not as competent as they think they are and thus deserve every bit of excoriation they get.

If they were competent and none of this came out, IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG!!!

I never understood the whole 'take over the world' game. So you take over the world--you're on top; you know everything, nothing escapes you--now what? You're on a tiny little rock with a finite supply of resources. Now you have the pleasure of worrying about losing control of your 'power' for the rest of your life, until it actually is taken from you.

Sadly it may well be in our genes, as it is pretty much the monkey hill scaled to epic proportions...

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

Do you bug your neighbors home, a neighbor you are on friendly terms with?

That depends, is she hot?

/ducks

I'm kidding, of course. That really does illustrate the point, though. The answer may well be different for many folks you'd think would say No in every case. Heck, it's a lot like the clients I have who wonder if I read their emails while fixing their computers. They think their lives are interesting but, in reality, 90% of folks are downright boring and the only people who don't think so are the ones involved with them. A solid 9.9% of the population knows they're boring.

Or even worse, we get caught up in a moment and elect the wrong people to office. Desperate nations do stupid, stupid things.

This is what concerns me the most, of late, in the public arena. While I think we need to get most of these worthless asshats out of Congress, what really bothers me is who's going to replace them? God, this must be what getting old feels like. *sigh*

/curmudgeon

I try to avoid political statements, because I find that voting (often) gets my point across so much better. I will make one exception: this one.

What worries me most about some of the aforementioned 'wrong people' who can be voted into office, is when a group gaining traction is known to possibly harbor possible insurrectionists, and/or people not entirely sold on this whole 'United States of America' thing. I find it somewhat distressing that people who make very strong indications of disagreement with some of the core principles (religious freedom, equality of the common man, giving up some 'base' rights like revenge or cowboy law in exchange for living in a peaceful civilization) that our country is built on are getting into office.

In that above paragraph, you can see a problem that has toppled empires - those who matter most among us are starting to lose sight of the principles that got us started in the first place, and other countries are cluing into some of these ideas on their own.

In general the American people are a good, honest, hard-working, highly independent and highly creative people simply trying to live our lives like everyone else on this crazy planet. Unfortunately I feel the threat of people who want their way, right now, and will gladly shoot you in the face with any number of legal weapons to bully you into letting them have it growing on a daily basis. I'll not lie: this scares me like foe de jour ever could.

What's worse, is no amount of spying can stop it. The very measures that are claimed to be able to keep us safe are only preventing the relative small fries from inflicting scratch damage (as seen after 9/11, when attacked, we get united, and pissed. Other countries, some advice: please don't do it!) Of course, parts of our own citizenry happily take advantage of, but actively work to undermine through legal means the ideas that made us the best in the world, on a regular basis. It reminds me of the story of how the Nazi party came to power, and not without merit - this group is often associated with the far right. Y'know, where fascism lives. And, I'm talking about real fascism, not just the bipartisan slander that more-moderate groups of the aforementioned party use when they don't like the current president.

We're (all - not just Americans) our own worst enemy. We've (all - not just Americans) got to remember that all men (and women) are created equal, and that all are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, even if we don't necessarily agree on the 'best' way to achieve those lofty goals. We're all trying different things, and we've got let each other have the chance to explore and look.

We also need to remember human history, and avoid committing the atrocities our fathers either fought, or were complicit, in. That's my two cents, I hope to whatever divinity may or may not exist that some of those words have some value to someone with the power to reflect on them, and take beneficial action.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

Do you bug your neighbors home, a neighbor you are on friendly terms with?

+1;

To the original post:Or the age old lesson of: mind your own business. Or because sneaking into others lives makes you a 'pervert' - albeit of a grand international class in this case.Or because these sneaky habits breeds contempt and makes enemies - even out of friends.

And before you go off on your high horse that you don't need any friends, just remember: Every pride hath a fall.

I truly hope our government realizes that they need to fix this behavior, urgently.

It's shit like this that is detrimental to our nation more than anything else, imo. Word on the street is not many people are happy with our government and how it behaves on our behalf.

Next thing we know an armed revolution could take place, lord knows we have the guns for it, and a constitution begging for it.

Or even worse, we get caught up in a moment and elect the wrong people to office. Desperate nations do stupid, stupid things.

I know what it means to be an American. I know what this country stands for, and I will die fighting for it if it comes down to that. My life is less than a drop of water in the ocean, it isn't that important. Ideas, however, they are what sustains us, for good or bad. The United States of America is one of the best ideas humanity has ever come up with. Soldiers have fought and died for The Red White and Blue, died for our constitution, died for humanity.

Give me liberty or give me death. I live by those words. You owe it to humanity to subscribe to that idea as well. I don't only speak of Americans either, I mean all of us. Every color, creed, and country, we all owe it to those who have come before us, and most importantly, those who will come after us.

What does it take for evil to flourish?

You act as if they government is working for us. Its not. Its working for corporations and a a shadow government. They wont stop until there is some kind of serious outcry by a large majority of Americans and even then they wont go down without a fight. Stuff like this has been going on for along time. The only reason why its more transparent now is because of the internet.

Actually i think it makes sense for the PM and President to have info about what is happening in other governments regardless of whether they are friendly or not. This is what the NSA was made to do. All of this seems perfectly normal spying.

If they were competent and none of this came out, it would be justified. We're hearing about them now, so they're obviously not as competent as they think they are and thus deserve every bit of excoriation they get.

If they were competent and none of this came out, IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG!!!

I never understood the whole 'take over the world' game. So you take over the world--you're on top; you know everything, nothing escapes you--now what? You're on a tiny little rock with a finite supply of resources. Now you have the pleasure of worrying about losing control of your 'power' for the rest of your life, until it actually is taken from you.

Seems to me like there are better things to do than worry about what someone else is doing. I dream of an era where we aren't separated by our humanity, but drawn closer together because of it. We will never advance as a whole without cooperation, and looking over your allies' shoulders, reading their mail, and listening to their phone calls are going to start fights that could've been avoided if you'd just had the common decency to respect them.

Moderation and self-control are the keys to opening the doors of humanity.

Who's got the keys?

Its a bygone illusion in a bygone time to play the win/lose scenarios with the world. All it does is cause separation and cycles of suffering that get repeating from generation to generation. We need to start acting with more trust and considering other countries equal while not tolerating the mind set of greed, us vs them. We answer to truth and humanity. Thats it. what ever or who ever is not in line with that will fall by the way side while the wise people all rise together in respect and peace.

Every time China gets caught hacking US companies I have said (and others as well) that it's different from what we do. We do espionage and hacking for national security reasons, which is appropriate and necessary; they are doing espionage and hacking for their commercial interests as well, which is not.

I'm no longer confident that's true. It's difficult for me to imagine we are doing so much espionage on foreign companies and regulators with not a peep to US companies. Why else would we be doing it?

Actually:

(1) The scope and sophistication of US spying on the world, including China, makes China's ops look tame and amateurish by comparison.

(2) When has the USA not done espionage? If you honestly think this is something new I suggest you dig deeper into the history of US espionage operations, particularly the CIA and NSA. Warning: gets pretty dirty and you might become disillusioned.

(3) OK for the USA but not China/others? Noble for the USA but not China/others? Well, perhaps you have a point: this seems to the general attitude of the US government including Mr. Obama and a lot of the American public, but to the rest of the world it sounds self-serving and hypocritical. Just say'n'.

It seems you find the prospect of the US doing commercial espionage the most disturbing element here. That is also nothing new, in fact the US has a history of that at least back to the 19th Century, but personally, I find that pretty mundane and almost take it for granted that happens between developed countries, at least when it comes to economic data and military technology (hot tip: Israel and USA are great partners in the later) but again, you may have a point: the scope and depth of NSA spying has pretty much taken the world by surprise.

Every time China gets caught hacking US companies I have said (and others as well) that it's different from what we do. We do espionage and hacking for national security reasons, which is appropriate and necessary; they are doing espionage and hacking for their commercial interests as well, which is not.

I'm no longer confident that's true. It's difficult for me to imagine we are doing so much espionage on foreign companies and regulators with not a peep to US companies. Why else would we be doing it?

Actually:

(1) The scope and sophistication of US spying on the world, including China, makes China's ops look tame and amateurish by comparison.

(2) When has the USA not done espionage? If you honestly think this is something new I suggest you dig deeper into the history of US espionage operations, particularly the CIA and NSA. Warning: gets pretty dirty and you might become disillusioned.

(3) OK for the USA but not China/others? Noble for the USA but not China/others? Well, perhaps you have a point: this seems to the general attitude of the US government including Mr. Obama and a lot of the American public, but to the rest of the world it sounds self-serving and hypocritical. Just say'n'.

It seems you find the prospect of the US doing commercial espionage the most disturbing element here. That is also nothing new, in fact the US has a history of that at least back to the 19th Century, but personally, I find that pretty mundane and almost take it for granted that happens between developed countries, at least when it comes to economic data and military technology (hot tip: Israel and USA are great partners in the later) but again, you may have a point: the scope and depth of NSA spying has pretty much taken the world by surprise.

The whole issue to me is the purpose. I am not surprised or dismayed to see espionage for state security. To the extent that our espionage is for that purpose, I see no hypocrisy in condemning industrial espionage by other nations. If we engage in industrial espionage ourselves, that is when it becomes hypocrisy. Just like it would be hypocrisy if we used espionage and surveillance against legitimate political parties, to target political critics, etc.

There is a secondary concern about scale but it's not necessarily the scale itself, it is that if it is too easy to misuse the data, we are safer if the data is not collected at all.

It's easy to say "everybody does it" as an excuse, but first, nobody does it the way we do. So that excuse rings hollow. And second, I do believe that our nation should stand for something, and sometimes that means taking the moral stance even if there is a cost. Morality should not be forgotten when we move from the level of the individual (who we expect to be moral and law-abiding, even at personal cost) to the level of the corporation or the nation. I believe that much of our standing in the world has been earned that way, and much has been lost that way as well.